MAXroam V2 launches at TechCrunch50

8 Sep 200822 Views

It has been almost one year since Cubic Telecom, led by Pat Phelan, unleashed its MAXroam low-cost telco product at TechCrunch40 in San Francisco and it has been a successful 12 months at that because Phelan is back with a new and improved version for the 100,000, and growing, customer base.

Since the launch, Phelan said that customers using the MAXroam SIM have collectively saved over US$1m in roaming charges.

“We’ve promised our customers that we’re going to keep fighting for lower charges and pass the savings onto them. In this release, we’ve secured an even bigger win for customers on voice roaming with exceptional savings.”

While MAXroam Version 2 has brought abut more savings for voice calls abroad, the main focus for this release has been to bring down data roaming charges, which can cripple phone users who chance their arm and switch on their network’s roaming service when abroad.

Phelan said that in the first instance companies like Cubic Telecom had challenged traditional telcos by providing a cost-effective alternative to voice roaming charges but, ironically, these firms had gone for gold with data and this is what MAXroam is now tackling with 0.005c/kb roaming charges in the US.

“Everyone now accepts that more and more of our telecoms usage will be data, and that eventually everything – including voice – will be sent over data streams.

“While the telcos are slowly reducing voice charges, they’re still excessively charging on data. Until now, there wasn’t much we could do about it. What MAXroam previously did for roaming monopolies with voice, we’re now doing with data,” said Phelan.

On his official blog Phelan outlines some of the tweaks to the new MAXroam including an improved user-friendly design, auto top-up, the ability for customers to order more than one SIM at a time and video guides for tips on how best to use the product.